Thursday, June 05, 2014

Should Israel Withdraw Unilaterally?

A considerable majority of the Jewish public (60%) disagrees with the claim that given the failure to reach understandings, Israel should, for its own reasons, unilaterally withdraw from extensive parts of the West Bank so as to scale back its rule over the Palestinian population and avoid a binational reality. On the claim, however, that in light of the failure to reach understandings Israel should officially annex the areas that are important to it in terms of settlement and security, the ratio between supporters and opponents is more balanced: 49% oppose annexation in this context while 43% favor it. These findings show that the Jewish public is mostly inclined to oppose the claim that in light of the lack of success in reaching understandings with the Palestinians, Israel should take unilateral steps of one kind or another. A segmentation of the answers to these questions by interviewees’ political camp turns up huge gaps: on the right only 25% support a unilateral withdrawal, in the center 43%, while on the left a large majority of 77% favors one. As for unilateral annexation, the picture, of course, is the reverse: on the right 55% support such an annexation given the failure to reach understandings with the Palestinians, compared to 33% in the center and 21.5% on the left. Among the Arabs over two-thirds support a unilateral Israeli withdrawal and an even larger majority (72%) opposes a unilateral annexation.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.